


Scream Unending

by darklyenigmatic



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, More angst, old!fic, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-21
Updated: 2012-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 10:09:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklyenigmatic/pseuds/darklyenigmatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor screamed for a long, long time after he destroyed Gallifrey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scream Unending

_{The Doctor screamed for a long, long time after he destroyed Gallifrey. It wasn’t a scream that could be heard, not anymore, not with everyone gone, but he screamed nonetheless, a part of his mind devoted to howling out the anger and the pain and the emptiness on a psychic frequency that only he was tuned to. It was constant and endless, because his grief was constant and endless.}_

It fades out of his psychic hearing eventually, like the hum of a refrigerator, unnoticeable for being ceaseless. That doesn’t mean it stops. It never stops.

Even the other telepathic races he occasionally encounters don’t know it’s there; he screams in the space where the Time Lords should have been, and only another Time Lord would be able to hear it. It will never be heard.

*

 

The second thing the Master becomes aware of following his regeneration - after the drums - is the scream. Harsh, animal, unending and raw, with so much pain in it he physically shivers. It takes a moment to realise it’s inside his head, the only thing filling the empty space where the Time Lords should be. It takes another moment to recognise that it is the Doctor screaming.

He runs. He runs, but the scream can’t be escaped, so he draws it close. He never quite manages to master the art of ignoring it. The irony is not lost on him. It’s always there. No matter what he does to the Doctor, to Earth, it never gets worse, never lessens. He isn’t sure whether that angers or consoles him. He tries to wrap himself in the drums instead, but he can still hear it.

  


*

 

The scream doesn’t stop during the Year That Never Was. Even in his calm, as he weaves the threads of the Archangel Network into his psychic matrices, he screams. Even with the Master there, he can’t seem to stop. It never drowns out the other Time Lord’s presence, though. He is glad of that. He doesn’t think he would survive if it did.

He knows that the Master can hear it. He sees that in his eyes sometimes. Sometimes he wishes he could stop, just for the Master’s sake. He can only imagine what it must be like to hear it. Sometimes he is glad that finally, _finally,_ it can be heard. Mostly he just wants it to end. Wants to be able to shut off the tiny, broken part of his mind that will never, _can_ never be mended, that keeps him screaming even in the face of another Time Lord. Even in the face of not being alone anymore.

 

  


*

  
The scream crescendos when the Master dies. Then it stops. Trails away and becomes a whimper. The scream ended, eventually. The whimper won’t. He thinks of an old Earth poem, thinks of the end of the Universe. His laugh is broken, and there is a whimper behind it, hidden and unheard. The Master was his world, was lost, and he screamed. The Master was his world, was found again, and in the finding he screamed. The Master was lost again, and now he whimpers. The Master won’t be found again.

The whimper will continue, never fading. Perpetual.


End file.
